WORLD A CELESTIAL PLACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 11, 14 January 1936, Page 10

WORLD A CELESTIAL PLACE

What Science is Ab e to Do

‘ Though we may uol !»*• de cmltd from the guds we < <in make the world a celestial place it we wish. “If the world has not burn made any happier or better by what scicme bagiven it, the fault is with the human ; race itsell and not with suiem-e. ' These are quotations from a spceoli ( at Norwich b\ Sir Richard Gregory, 1 famous scientist and Emeritus Proies- > sor ot Astronomy, Queen’s College. } London, prior to the opening of the British Association • = “In the minds of the average man and woman, science is associated with I the transformation ot beautilul coun- - try sides into the slums of industrial 5 centres, with high explosive, shells and clouds of poison gas. 1 “Nothing is farther from the truth than to suppose that these degrading aspects of civilisation are the neccs1 sary consequences of scientific pro I K ,ess - j “They are due,” he said, “to human I greed and the same spirit of jealousy - as that which led Cain to rise up and - slay his brother. They are the coiise- - quences of the fact that civilised man iis little removed from the savage where his primitive instincts are con-

perned, and ii Io < .ui acquire th< ' trcngifi of a giant thiough scicme, I ic is prepared tu use it for his own ends. | ‘Cbloune was used for bleaching pu.'poses long before it was introduced ! .is a poison gas in the Great War; the mixture of metallic' aluminium and jiorti - oxide known as thermit wai I used lor welding metals beloie it wag ; applied, to making incendiary iiumbs; saltpetre is a potent fertiliser lor agricuTural ciops, as well as 4 constituent ol gunpowder. “It was an ironical comment on im* - 'brii (ivilisation that the social reaction to the gilts ot plenty made possible by sc’.eiitiiiu discoveries and their application was not an increase of human w<4larc but distress ami uuciuployment. “Our distributive and economic systems, begun in a prc-seienti(i«: age, were wholly unadjusted to the change and unable to bear the burden pluck’d upon them by Ihe problems of new and almost incredible abundance. “Science alone cannot save mankind from disaster, but its influence as the guide and expression of man b fearless quest for truth should help to shape the future and give the civilised world reason to hope and ex peed the eml of the night of weeping and the advent of the morning of song.”